


I feel so wrong in skin supposedly my own

by rexthranduil



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M, Tarsus IV, Warning: violence, warning: assault, warning: basically I seemed to want to make Jim suffer a lot when this was first created, warning: rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-13 00:39:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11173368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexthranduil/pseuds/rexthranduil
Summary: “Try not our strength, so easily subdued.” James Tiberius Kirk’s life has never been easy. Neglected, intelligent, child of a hero, delinquent. Let alone in a hostile world where his wits were the only thing to keep him alive. But for all that James T. Kirk has suffered, he has not been without reprieve, he has not been ignored by fate... has he Commander?





	1. Fucked up kid and Messages to Starfleet

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally begun in 2009. It hasn't been worked on in over seven years. I do not write in present tense anymore. It's so difficult for me to write in present tense for this. But damn it, I started a good'n and I'm gonna finish it!
> 
> Oh gods, someone punch me now.

Ever since he was a kid in the corn-fields and shipyards of Iowa he’d always felt unwanted. Like he was damaged goods no one wanted to own. Not even his own mother.

Years of abuse, ignorance and neglect had made him ‘emotionally unstable’, ‘psychologically disturbed’ and a skilled liar. So much so he could lie to himself and believe every word. Believe that he was worth something, that he mattered, that he was allowed to be loved.

Although he wasn’t responsible for the circumstances of his birth he still felt responsible for the events—especially because he’d not only lost a father but any chance of a family. He had a mother who couldn’t bear the sight of him and spent as much time as she could off-world chasing a shadow when her last ties to her husband were stranded on earth by her. He had a brother who glared at him and would tell him it was _“your fault”_ even though he’d been nothing but a babe at the time. It was only his childish need for love, the desire to be accepted by those who shared his blood, and the general lack of anywhere else to go, that kept him with them. That kept him in fields of corn and shipyards.

When Sam ran and left him alone, he snapped. Years of knowing how unwanted he was, how much of a painful reminder he was of what they’d lost, of how it was a _“mistake to have ever let you in my house”_ coalesced into a single, defining moment of his future.

A cliff. The certainty of death. The possibility of being free from the guilt he wasn’t meant to have. It would be so easy, so very easy to just keep going and let gravity do the job for him. No big deal. A solution to the problem that was his existence.

But he couldn’t do it. Cowardly and pathetic as it was, he didn’t want to die. He just wanted to stop hurting. Stop being blamed and hated. He wanted it to stop but he didn’t want to die.

So he’d bailed.

Jumped ship before the car had careened off the cliff, landed in the dirt and knew, in that moment, that nothing was going to be the same. He was going to be a seen as a troublemaker, an attention-seeker with a bad-attitude and no respect for property. People already thought a lot of things about him— _“looks just like his father”, “those eyes of his”, “such a smart boy”, “he’ll grow up to be a hero”, “stupid, worthless brat”_ —what did it matter if they thought some more?

 

* * * *

 

The crops had begun to fail two months after he arrived. A fungus eating away at the only food they had. The standard reserves were being waded through by panicking colonists to the point where there was little to be done other than bartering. People panicked, as people are wont to do. He panicked too, but he hid it better; growing up with Frank for a ‘father’ certainly helped in the masking emotions department. He knew that panicking wasn’t going to help anything; finding out what _the hell was going on_ would _._

So he’d hacked the system; devoured every piece of information available for it, diverted alarms, avoided the digital traps in the firewalls around the inner-core of information that the upper-echelons of the colony’s administration were desperately hiding. All the data relevant to the rapid degeneration of the crops in the colony, the information pertaining to certain fringe groups who were vying to take over, private transmissions with ‘unauthorised’ scientists about the nature of the fungi. It made his head spin, but it was the single report that was hidden away under all of this information that made his blood run cold.

The standard estimates of colony survival and the estimated response time of Star Fleet...

Jim might have been smart but he was still a kid, a troubled, messed-up, emotionally constipated kid who needed someone to look to, someone to help him with this but... there wasn’t anyone. His aunt and uncle, while kind, weren’t the type of people to listen to his ‘far-fetched’ ideas about the colony and the only other people he could tell already knew.

So he did the only thing he could in the circumstances.

He’d erased all evidence of his actions, not a single inkling that someone had seen what they were trying to keep desperately hidden until the right time. Jim had also set up a transport shuttle for himself, his aunt, uncle and a dozen or so other colonists who he knew wouldn’t last the expected famine. Then he’d hightailed it home, hoping that nothing was going to happen before they could get on the transport.

Jim had made it back to his aunt and uncle’s house just in time to get caught by one of the patrols and shepherded with the rest of the colonists who lived on the outskirts of the colony into the large garden area of the nearby market place. He’d pushed his way through the throngs of people, feeling progressively more and more tense and worried, calling out for his aunt as he went.

He should have sent a message to Starfleet first.


	2. Madness and things kids should never have to do

Madness. It was madness. Every shout. Every scream. Every shot. Every death. It was all madness like none he’d ever thought to see. Madness no one would have thought to see.

_“Therefore, I have no alternative but to–”_

Even before his speech had concluded, he’d stopped listening and started running. He’d seen the soldiers standing around, seen them gripping their guns, some grim-faced other maniacal-looking with glee hidden in their eyes. He hadn’t needed to hear the rest to know what was going to happen.

Hiding in shadows, burnt out homes and empty buildings. Stealing from the dead; clothes, food, _anything_ that could keep him alive a little longer. Finding others along the way, taking them with him into the hills and the valleys, hiding in the forests and caves. Avoiding the patrols. Fighting against wild animals determined to kill. Hunting and being hunted.

Bloodied hands, bruised skin and aching bones. Months of hell, months of fighting and hiding, running and dying. So much and for _what_?

Nothing.

It was senseless.

 _He_ was senseless.

 

* * * *

 

The first few weeks were hell, trying desperately to avoid the patrols—they were _everywhere_ —as much as the survivors growing more and more feral, more and more desperate. He’d hoped that someone was going to save him, and the kids he’d found along the way. Only a dozen people had survived the massacre in the square, but only three of them were still alive; himself included. Kevin, little Kevin, younger than him by at least three years didn’t deserve to be running, didn’t deserve to be hunted. But did any of them? Did Cassandra, T’Sal, Mitchell or Tellie? No. But didn’t matter. Hunted was what they were and survive was what they must do.

They had to survive for those who hadn’t.

Someone had to live to remember the tragedy, this hell.

If they didn’t, _no-one_ would know.

 

* * * *

 

There are things a child should never have to do. Things no one should ever have to resort to doing. Killing, murder, theft, selling themselves... these are the things that no sentient being, regardless of their origins, should ever have to resort to in order to survive another day.

However, just because they shouldn’t be things to even be remotely considered, desperation has a way of driving even the most rational of beings down avenues they, before, would never have thought to have been in the realm of possibility for themselves.

That was the way it was for him and dozens, maybe even hundreds, of others all over the colony. Doing the most disgusting of things, the most desperate of acts just to live another day.

Many notable intellectuals have commented on this facet of sentient behaviour, most notably human behaviour. But, though they have commented upon it, and naturally left their own erstwhile moralistic interpretation upon it, they have never, not even remotely, succeeded in providing an epiphanic view on something that is human nature. Choosing instead to vilify survival through any means and judge those who have survived.

People like him.

It made him wonder, were those intellectuals in his position, would they cling to their lofty statements or, like so many that he knew here, would they sacrifice their personal creeds, their assertions and principles simply to survive?

 _‘They probably would_ ,’ he thought, _‘there’s nothing people won’t do to survive...no matter how_ principled _they are_.’ But the actions of others didn’t matter, nor did hypotheticals, because this was hell and it was here that, after the first time of being treated like an exquisite treat to a beast, he had cried for a father he never knew as the others enjoyed the food won through blood, sweat and pain—the type that took innocence and tore it apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fucking end me jfc (how the hells did I write this)


	3. The promises shown to be lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll just... leave this here

The first time he killed someone he was full of adrenaline, anger and fear. It wasn’t like it was in the books, not like it was in the holovids… it wasn’t quick or clean. It was violent, messy and downright horrifying.

He’d been searching through one of the many abandoned farm houses with T’Sal and Melanie. T’Sal was a Vulcan, two years older than him, who had travelled to Tarsus with several whizz-kids to some sort of Star Fleet endorsed Science Cam—Jim didn’t really know much about it since he’d ended up on Tarsus because of his delinquency not his IQ points. Melanie was the daughter of the now dead chief of security at the colony; a native of Tarsus she was a year younger than Jim at 14 and was twice as stubborn. She was also the second-in-command of their little make-shift band of survivors.

Jim had initially wanted her to remain back at base with the others but, if there was one thing he’d learned from his time on Tarsus it was this; no one, literally no one, could make Melanie do something she didn’t want to. So, Jim had reluctantly stopped trying to make her stay behind after the thirtieth attempt and a sucker punch to his jaw.

T’Sal and Mel were standing watch; Mel to the East of the house, T’Sal to the West. Technically only T’Sal needed to stand watch since he was a Vulcan and was in possession of _“superior auditory and visual senses”_ but everyone was weak from the lack of food—even the stubborn, pointy-eared Vulcan teen that refused to show weakness. There was also the added problem with the increase in patrols in the area they had to regularly travel through in order to reach the outer perimeters of the colony.

Pausing for a moment in his search Jim looked around slowly, paying close attention to all the indicators that no one had been here in awhile as he did so. He’d noticed the signs the moment he’d entered the property but he’d hoped, stubbornly, stupidly, that there would be food somewhere. Instead there was smashed furniture, shattered dishware, damaged PADDs and even a trashed tricorder.

He let out a quiet sigh of frustration, wishing he could let loose and break what little furniture remained, but he knew such an act would bring Mel, and probably T’Sal, running, as well as possibly alert any nearby patrols to their presence.

Deciding that, although there was no food to be found, there were still things that could be of value to them in the house, Jim began collecting various knick-knacks and stuffing them into his knapsack. The PADDs with their ruined screens (maybe he and T’Sal could cannibalise them for parts and fix one up?), the cutlery littered throughout the dining area (never know when you need a sharp object to defend yourself—and T’Sal might even crack a smile for finally being able to eat without having to resort to using his hands), the tricorder, blankets, old clothes, heck even nails from the smashed furniture. They could make use of a lot of the stuff even if it was food they were initially after.

The best thing he found however was an outdated Terran communications device—a radio. It could be useful in contacting Star Fleet… _if_ they could get it to work.

Understanding the importance of time Jim realised that they had been at the house for nearly an hour—far too long—and needed to be heading back to base before nightfall. The last thing they needed was to be out in the open at night. Realising he was closer to the back of the property—i.e. the West—than the front where he’d entered, Jim decided to meet up first with T’Sal and then to pick up Mel as they headed back to camp.

Coming out of the back door where T’Sal was standing, Jim realised the Vulcan was listening intently for something. Just as he was about to ask T’Sal what he was listening for the sound of phaser fire and a sharp, piercing scream caused the pair of them to bolt around the property, the knapsack forgotten as they ran.

At the start of the fields closest to the house, perhaps a hundred metres away, a half dozen soldiers stood huddled around the writhing figure of Mel, with a seventh soldier straddling the teen.

The rage that burnt through Jim was so strong and fierce that its burning strength felt like a freezing coldness in his heart, that it was a rage he’d never before felt. It was the type of rage that one felt for a loved one when they were in danger but... stronger, harsher, fiercer. Instead of forcing him to throw himself at the soldiers with an animalistic roar, this anger had him moving in tandem with T’Sal whose own being burned the same.

The anger gave him focus; made him cold and deadly, silent and strong as he ruthlessly dispatched soldier after soldier—a snapped neck, collapsed trachea, one gutted with his own blade and another still shot with his own plasma rifle. The rage was all consuming but controlled, insatiable yet sated after the last soldier fell to Jim and T’Sal.

In the middle of the dead fields, surrounded by dead soldiers, Jim and T’Sal moved to check on their friend only to find the soldier who had been straddling her had choked her. She’d died while they had been fighting the soldiers, unable to save herself. She’d died knowing they were there and failed to save her.

They failed her.

 _Jim_ failed her.

It was long after night had fallen when T’Sal and a sombre Jim returned to base, tattered and blood stained from their ordeal. Jim deposited the knapsack by the fire and left everyone to rejoice over the ration packs they’d scavenged from the dead soldiers. He and T’Sal did not eat the rations and they all knew the reason why two had returned when three had left.

 

* * * *

 

They came in ships, armed and ready to ‘save the day’ when the day had already been lost. Promises of _“it’s safe now”_ and _“you’re okay, you’re okay”_ that were already shown as lies. Needles and injections, bed-rest and diets. Weeks of being unable to walk, talk, think or feel beyond the next few seconds. Watching the others leave, one by one, either to death or madness or somewhere not-home.

Him alone, waiting still for a family that would never come. Sent to earth, told his mother couldn’t come so they were sending him to her.

Knowing it wasn’t true because he’d sent the message.


End file.
